I will try and give you an account of our experiences
from the time when we came to Nebraska in 1856. We crossed the Missouri river
on July 9, of that year, in a ferryboat drawn across by a pulley at Nebraska
City. We camped on South Table creek until my husband could get a house for
us.

J. Sterling Morton and O. H. Irish were young lawyers
commencing their careers, and they were just building the first Methodist
church at Nebraska City.

So many people froze to death that winter - it was bitter
cold. I remember seeing a man standing on the street as though he did not
know just what to do. He finally started for the place now known as Dunbar.
He was frozen to death.

We lived in Nebraska City until 1858. My husband took a
pre-emption on the south branch of the little Nemaha thirty miles from
Nebraska City and we moved there that spring. Our nearest neighbor was about
four miles from us.

Fed Nine Indians

We had been there about two weeks when one evening nine
Indians came to the house and wanted something to eat. I had our supper
ready. I told my husband to let them set down and eat, and I would get
supper again. They sat down and ate everything on the table but the dishes.
They saw some potatoes we had hauled from Nebraska City, and wanted some to
take along. They wanted something to cook them in, and we gave them one of
the stove pots, which they said they would bring back.

Their horses had been left at a deserted house down the
creek, they said. I had washed at the creek that day. We had a spring near
the house but it was a very steep hill to carry the water up, so when it was
nice I washed in the creek.

There was a light shower of rain and the clothes did not
dry, so I had to leave them on the bushes. One of the boys had gone to the
settlement up the creek to get some of the men to come and help watch our
horses, for fear the Indians would steal them. We did not have a gun or any
fire arms in the house, nor a stable for the horses.

Watched By Turns

The boys took turns but the Indians did not come. When
daylight came they went down through the timber and saw white things hanging
on the bushes. They looked to see what they were, and found them sheets and
pillow cases.

The Indians had gone in where I had washed and stolen my
clothes. What they could not use they hung on the bushes. They stole nine of
the menís shirts and a dresssing sacque of mine. Four of the shirts were just
new. I had no sewing machine, and had to make them all by hand. The Indians
had gone leaving the stove pot in the vacant house.

We stayed that year on the farm. We had the fever and
ague all that fall and winter, and sometimes we were hardly able to get each
other a drink of water.

Gold had been found in the west and the Pike's peak excitement
started that spring. My husband had been in California and had the gold fever
and insisted on going west. We still had the house in Nebraska City. He rented
the farm and we moved to the city, and he and the two older boys got ready
and started for the gold field, leaving me with five children, a load of corn
cobs, and a few pennies. They said they would get rich and send me a lot of gold.

Came Right Back

Well, they were gone ten days and came back. They had met
others that had been out there and said there was no gold. We hardly knew
what to do. The man we had rented the farm to had left it on account of
Indians, so the best we could do was to go back on it, and back we went.

It was to late to plant corn so we sewed the ground to
buckwheat. It was a good crop that year, but before harvest we had eaten what
provisions we had.

When some corn our renter had planted was hard enough to
grate, my husband made us a grater of a piece of tin, and we had corn bread
three times a day. When the buckwheat was ready to cut, they thrashed it with
a flail, and one of the boys took a load of it, with some corn to Nebraska
City to get it ground. They wouldnít grind it because it would dirty their
mill stones. It was taken to Wyoming, the same excuse was put up there. Then
it was taken down river, I donít remember the name of the place, and we were
able to get it in two weeks.

Used Coffee Mill

When my husband came home from the last trip we had to
qrind buckwheat in the coffee mill three times a day for bread. Luckily we
had a double-geared mill that would grind it fine and sift it. We had buckwheat
three times a day for about three weeks, and then we began to get tired of it.

I remember two men that came to our house. They had been
out with a company of surveyors, and had started to walk and got lost. They
stayed all night, and one of them ground wheat so he could have that fact to
write about in his diary. His name was Bolt.

I remember another scare we had while we lived in Nemaha.
Word came that the Indians were on the Little Blue river, and they had killed
several people. They were at Beatrice, it was reported, and on their way to
our part of the country.

Fled The Indians

As we had only an ox team to travel with we thought we had better start in time. Others were
leaving. We hid what things we could in the hazel brush and loaded the rest
of our belongings in the wagon and went to the home of our son-in-law, Fred
Wood, who lived near Dunbar. It was he who helped build the the first court
house in Nebraska City. We stayed with him two or three weeks, and not hearing
of the Indians approach, I told my husband we would go back to our home. If
the Indians came we would do the best we could. We went back and found
everything as we left it, the Indians never came.

Well, we lived there about eight years. These days people
know nothing about hard times that the settlers underwent. One dry year we
raised nothing but a little wheat. We had thirty acres of corn, but never got
even a nubbin. We did not know what we were going to do, but we put our trust
in God and we got through all right.

My husband had a turning lathe that he sat up in a shop we
had built. We went to Nebraska City and bought some lumber, turned bedsteads,
and took them back to the city and sold them. There is always a way, if we
trust in God and do the best we can.